Don’t Just Work Hard, Work Smart Too!

Someone looking at someone from the outside in can be so quick to place judgment. It is socially common everywhere — at least here in the western world– where we are instantly defined by what we do for a living. And usually, this is implied through what we do for work.

Your working life is everything that your life stands for. It is everything people use to boil you down into a nutshell. Afterall, you are what you are consumed by.

The Three Types

The way in which you spend your time for money is what makes you, or breaks you–socially. And in this, I like to separate people into 3 different working class categories.

They are:

Employers, or people who found obvious success on their own terms. These are people who are praised, and glorified. These people are excused from the terms such as REAL Job, or Real Work because it is automatically insinuated as the money earned here, speaks for itself.

Employees, or people who are directly working as an employee/trading their time for someone else’s dream in some manner. These people are deemed admirable, respectable, and honest. These people exemplify the typical hard-working stereotype. This is also the classic definition for what work really is. The intense effort sustained in the longevity of a career, exchanging compensation for one’s time. This is work, because people work hard for their money.

Transitioning workforce This is what I call everyone else who doesn’t fit into either of the above two. And typically, they are on the cusp of falling into one or the other categories. While transitioning, these people can be scrutinized as lazy or lost. The hassle here is that they aren’t participating with a real job, because A. They haven’t made a lot of money yet, or B. They aren’t choosing to exchange their time for compensation, in committing their life to another’s strange dream.

Personally, as I pursue my own creative exploits I definitely fall into this transitioning workforce. And categorically speaking, I am usually on the verge of breaking even or going broke– a true starving artist. Regardless of the situation, people on the outside looking in always cultivate such scrutiny towards people in similar situations.

Before I go any further, I want to note on how I am cultivating a very biased opinion in these experiences here. Nevertheless, here are some of the personal examples that I want to touch up on:

Get a real job.

No.

I had a real job, and a very lucrative one at that — at least for my standards. But, I gave it up.

I left for several reasons, and predominantly because of the many existential crises’ that kept surfacing for me.

Alternatively, let me ask you– what is a real job? What are the standards of a real job?

Everything we do on this plane of existence has been fabricated by the men and women on this planet. A real job is a fallacy. A real job is technically just something people do in place of what we were going to do anyways, and that is…

To fill time. Regardless of everything we strive for, the clock is still ticking steadily. And in that fact, time is really just another conceptualization of moveable moments.

“Well you should seek out to get a good job in order to work for a good source of income.”

And I’ll admit it is true,as we can’t escape our self-created society. But in riches, and in wealth we will still suffer in other ways.

If it’s not a financial suffering, it will be something else– It always is.

So, ill take my chances and opt out of a 35 year routine chasing cushy pensions, and emotional security blankets.

Not to take away from the typical working lifestyle, or to make it out as a “wrong” choice. But what sticks me most, is when people project that path as the only path, or that I am delusional in trying to find a pleasurable alternative.

Lazy bastard.

“You’re lazy, you don’t want to work like everybody else, you have terrible work ethic. Quitter…”

I grew up as a grunt, and I put A LOT of hard work into a lot of things. Contrary to that fact, I also put VERY LITTLE effort into a lot of other things.

This is what sacrifice is all about. And it doesn’t mean there is a lack of work ethic solely on the fact that an individual is not holding onto a “real job”.

It’s not a lack of work ethic, it’s simply a sacrifice in order to apply a strong work ethic elsewhere. This is sacrifice, and we all do it day in and day out, on many different levels.

Calling someone lazy, or knocking their work ethic right off the bat is sheer ignorance. Furthermore, a ‘bad’ work ethic is usually the symptom of one thing — a lack of passion.

You can call someone lazy for choosing not to work the typical 40-hour, 9 to-5 lifestyle, Go ahead. But chances are, that a person who is projecting this laziness to another person who is seeking alternative paths, is usually well immersed within the typical 40-hour grind themselves.

It’s not our fault that you’re miserable, and honestly, anyone can play this ignorant game. I can harp on you for a lack of commitment somewhere else along the lines of your life. Though it may not be for your working life, maybe I can harp on your failed relationships as a lazy spouse. Or potentially on your physical health, as a lazy glutton, or dig up another irrelevant facts, about your life.

I could very simply project the MY OWN life’s importance onto yours and find lack there:

“You could have been doing some real work and YOU could be the one writing this 5000+character rantful essay! Instead, you were too busy with your childish 40-hour work week… YOU LAZY F**K!”

Perspective is a funny thing.

People fail to see it, and they fail to see it often. Or maybe they do, but just don’t give a damn– Both equally viable concepts.

Regardless, it is a pretty childish game that we play here. And realistically, I would never question anyones work ethic, or argue with anyones life choices/circumstances under these ridiculous circumstances.

The point I am trying to make, is that a person’s argument relative to another’s work ethic can quickly fall short if you take into consideration that this scrutiny is simply a comparison of priority.

My own priorities, aren't your priorities... they could very well be, but
they can differ greatly from person to person. Your priority may very well
be committing to a 40 hour work week, and my 40 hours goes to however the
hell I want to spend it.

Secondly, a person’s work ethic should never be questioned over their choice to participate.

There are plenty of people out there that make for terrible workers,and this is simply because they lack passion in whatever it is they are doing. Which is all the more reason to seek an alternative path in the first place.

I can’t fathom it, how most people can be so miserable, but constantly suppress it… Oh yea, it pays the bills– so its excusable behaviour.

Give up the dream.

A dream is anything other than the grind. Chasing an alternative to the rat race is fantastical. And where you invest a lot of time without any immediate reward, you are easily instructed to give it up.

Chasing your dream is a funny concept.

Most people will support it when it’s just a thought out there in space. But as soon as you start to put it into practice, there are very few and very specific people left to urge you through it.

And, if it isn’t rewarding you quick enough, well guess what– it’s time to quit and get a real job.

You hear it time in and time out as the most succesful people develop that trait.

It is tempting to give into their failures, but their success was found in their opposition to it. No matter how arguable it was to give up on their dreams, successful people found their way through a persistant rebellion.

You only have a lifetime to make your dreams a reality. If you don’t focus on your dreams, what else is left– other than an underactive imagination.

You have to think about your future.

I totally agree. That is why I made these choices, and it is why I continue to make these choices.

I am not sitting here impulsively living my life. And just because I am not collecting steady paychecks, doesn’t warrant that I am not pursuing some purpose or intention.

In fact, I am constantly thinking about my future, and I intend to find MY real purpose. Our perspectives just differ:

“Get and keep a good job, save money, retire, live off what I made over the past 35 year routine:

VS.

Well, a lot can happen in 35 years. And, I would rather feed my questions for experiences in this world now, than to purposely chase a career down in order go back on my original feelings down the road.

I want to do it now, AND I want to do it later too. And if I have no money from my exploits then either, then at least I did something right in making it that far.

On Potentials’ Death Bed

People fear suffering, loss, and death. In avoidance, we absorb ourselves in such realities to live such comfortable lives.

But, comfort brings its own set of problems. It brings complacency, apathy, and guess what else… Death— Both physically, and symbolically.

We become so comfortable in our own comforts, that we lose touch with our own personal growth.

It then becomes harder to let go of everything we worked for, because we spent so much time working for the things we think we want. As we near our own physical demise– which was taking place all along since our birth–duh… We begin to question the very thing we tried to avoid in the first place when we sold our soul for that shitty career.

I’d like to think that I am trying to face up to those questions now. And if I’m the one that’s wrong, ill gladly admit to be the asshole here. Either way, I will never have any regrets as to how I spent my life.

Be it in abundance as a result of my creative endeavors, or penniless — Also, as a result of my creative endeavors — the truth here lies in the fact that I have complete responsibility in the way my life plays out– For both the choices I made, and the ones I didn’t.

Fight On

We are resilient beings, and we need to test ourselves as OUR OWN SELVES, not as a product of a social whole that has been so misguided/lost in the clusterf**k world that we live in today.

We lost ourselves in the industrialization, because deep down, we are still agrarian beings. We just overcomplicated our basic needs by adding more steps into achieving them.

Don’t Just Work Hard, Work Smart Too!

Life is work.

For me, playing into the typical rat race is hard work, but not necessarily smart work. With that in mind, I’ll take my chances by intelligently investing my hard work ethic into smart work. And in that, I’ll either find success, or starve myself trying– or maybe I’ll find satiety in swallowing my pride down the road for sustenance.